The information on this page is dated. Please check the up-to-date version here.

This website provides a revised draft of the new Export and Import Price Index Manual. The revised product is the work of the authors and editor and is in the process of being reviewed by the Inter-secretariat Working Group on Price Indices (IWGPS). The authors and editor of the draft chapters on this site bear the sole responsibility for both the substance and the style of the contents. As such, the views expressed in the draft chapters are not to be attributed to the IMF.

The Technical Expert Groups on the Producer Price Index (TEG-PPI) the Consumer Price Index (TEG-CPI), and the Export and Import Price Indices (TEG-XMPI) were formed under the aegis of the IWGPS to produce Manuals on international best practice in compiling producer, consumer, and international trade price statistics, respectively. (More background information on the IWGPS can be found at Revision of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Manual on CPI). The ILO has served as secretariat of the IWGPS since the Working Group's inception in September 1998. In December 2003 the IWGPS designated the IMF as coordinating agency for the Export and Import Price Index Manual. The IMF assumed the secretariat of the IWGPS in April 2004, passed to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in March 2007.

This Manual is designed with consistent structure, terminology, and notation, wherever appropriate, to the CPI and PPI Manuals of the IWGPS. A draft version of the XMPI Manual was completed in 2006. This initial draft XMPI Manual was adapted from the PPI Manual (by IMF staff and a few other specialists) and posted on this web site. The Statistics Department of the IMF wrote in 2006 to each national statistical office and other interested organizations, including the OECD and WTO, requesting comments on the draft chapters. As a further part of the XMPI Manual review process a seminar on the draft manual was held in Washington D.C. during September 25–29, 2006. Participants included a focus group of compilers from selected national statistical offices and experts in the field that included many IWGPS members. Following the seminar written comments on each chapter were sent to the originating PPI authors who were asked to update the current versions of their chapters. Further reviews were sought and obtained as relevant. Helpful comments were also received by the UNSD and WTO.

The table of contents of the Manual is listed below along with revised draft chapters as of April 2008: